


Fair as Fay-Woman

by lilith_lessfair



Category: The Fall of Arthur - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_lessfair/pseuds/lilith_lessfair
Summary: in this tale, which takes place both in the world created by Tolkien in the Fall of Arthur but also incorporates varied elements of Arthuriana, Guinever arrives at Amesbury.  Her betrayal of Arthur with Lancelot is known and she has narrowly escaped execution, only to find herself in the power of Mordred.  She escapes, arrives at Amesbury and must consider what to do.This work is inspired by Narya_Flame’s Fair As Fay-Woman.  It may be foundhere
Relationships: Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Fair as Fay-Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/gifts).



“I shall have to call the abbess,” said the novice. Her face was thin and pale behind the partially-opened door. She had braced herself against it as if she were afraid that Guinever might push her way past and inside.

“Yes,” Guinever replied. “I suppose you must. May I, at the very least, come in from the night and wait?”

“I ...” the girl began. She was young. She was so very young. She could not have been long in her novitiate, and she seemed very uncertain. For a moment, Guinever considered using that uncertainty and intimidating the child into admitting her whether or not the abbess agreed. But, then, she looked again at the girl and saw the reddened hands, no doubt from the work and the weather, the ragged fingernails and the bottom lip seemingly oft chewed, and she remembered being this girl’s age and studying here in this very convent. She wondered, too, how she might have responded had a stranger arrived at the door late in the night during a time of war. Considering that, she realized that, while she might have chosen to overawe the girl, she was herself tired of that sort of battle and that kind of game. She had come here seeking something else. She would not find it if she began her new life as she had lived her old.

Instead, she waited.

The girl nodded, “There have been brigands about of late and armed men on the road. I have thought — we have thought that they were in search of someone or something — whether it is you or not, it would not do to leave you out alone. I do not think they would hesitate to snatch someone from our door.” She opened the door a little more and said, “Come in.”

Guinever crossed the threshold and stepped into the hallway. It seemed to have changed little in the years in which she had been gone. It was dimly lit but, from what she was able to see, in the flicker of the torch upon the wall and the dancing light of the candle the girl held, seemed neat and tidy. She adjusted the hood to conceal more of her face in the brighter, though still dim, hall.

“Follow me,” said the girl, and she began to lead Guinever down the winding hall towards the rooms that Guinever knew were occupied by the abbess. As they arrived, the girl began to open a door next to those chambers, a reception area of sorts, but Guinever stopped her.

“Is there still access to the garden through here?” she asked, pointing to a door to her left.

“You know the convent,” the girl said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” she replied. “I have stayed here before, in the days before I married.”

“There is a garden here,” the girl said. “It may be as you remember. I am told that it has not changed much, not since the High Queen was once a student here.” She seemed to consider that statement, though she made no effort to look more closely at Guinever or to try to examine her face. Instead, she seemed somewhat lost in thought, though, after a moment, she appeared to have made a decision. “Here,” she said, extending the candle to Guinever. “If you’re to go there, you’ll need the light, and I need only to go here.” She indicated the abbess’s door.

Guinever took the candle and then opened the door to the garden. The girl was correct. It had not changed much since she had been a student. Surrounded by the convent buildings and high walls, the space was secluded. A few evergreen trees were scattered along its perimeter, but the vast majority of the space featured, as it had before, roses. Tall climbing roses that stretched along careful lattices and upwards along the sides of the buildings. Lower, more robust bushes filled the spaces around benches. Earlier in the summer their scent would have been heady but, now, with autumn near only a few scattered blooms were able to be seen. She wandered towards a climbing rose and touched one of the three remaining blooms upon it. Even in the pale and flickering light of the candle it was visibly red. But it had clearly reached the end of its flowering; the petals were wrinkled and wilted; when she touched them, they began to fall to the ground.

All things go, she thought, and she took a seat on the bench beside the fading rose. Even as she did she heard the sound of the door open and a soft voice, that of the novice murmuring to someone, more likely than not the abbess, “She is waiting for you here. I think it must be she. Even hooded and by candlelight, she is as fair as a fay woman.”

“As far as the Fay,” the other woman said. She was older, clearly, and she voice was somehow familiar to Guinever, its sound a reminder of days long passed. “Fair as a fay woman. So she was. I will speak with her. While I do, go see to that which we have discussed.”

She heard no reply from the novice but, when the door shut a second time and a single set of footsteps were heard approaching in her direction, Guinever assumed the girl had left as asked. She herself remained seated and waiting. She looked at another rose, noticed the blight upon its leaves.

The footfalls drew nearer and then stopped.

“Fair as a fay woman. So you were. So you are. So you shall remain,” that familiar voice said, and Guinever raised her head. The woman before her was, indeed, familiar to her, though Guinever had seen her only a handful of times and, last, several years before when she had visited Camelot. “You are welcome here, Guinever.”

“Am I, my Lady of the Lake? This is strange place in which to see you. I had not thought to find you here, much less as the abbess.”

“No,” the woman replied softly. “I would imagine that you had not. Indeed, had you told me at the time in which you and I first met, that we would meet here, within the walls of the place that confined you and that excluded me, I would have laughed and said you were mad. But it would have been prophecy and prophets are often derided and ignored as mad.”

“And how did this come to be?”

“It is a long story,” the Lady said, “and one I would be glad to tell you, my Guinever. But let it wait for the morrow. For now, suffice to say that the world has changed. Refuges for women are become scare. My domain of old has receded and those of your people have grown more prominent. If I wish to be remembered, if I wish to have the wisdom for which I was once known and for which kings once heeded me, then I must find new ways of being seen and heard. This place, once prison for you, once forbidden to me, has become sanctuary to us both.”

“Is this a sanctuary for me?”

“It is,” the Lady replied. “One of the aspects of this place, as it was and as it is, that I have appreciated is the simple requirement that we must grant sanctuary to those who seek it. You have no need of my permission to receive entry here, though, truth be told, I would turn no one from the door in such uncertain times, least of all the one most likely to find herself a bargaining chip between foes or a trophy to passed to the victor. Sanctuary is yours if that is what you want.”

“It is,” Guinever replied. “I am surprised but grateful that it is with you. There are few others who would understand the twists and turns that have led me here.”

The Lady smiled and said quietly, “Come with me, then.”

Guinever rose and followed her from the garden back into the abbey. They entered through the same door and retraced the steps that led to the chambers belonging to the abbess. This time they entered. The rooms were warm and well, albeit not opulently appointed. A heavy tapestry hung upon the wall, and Guinever recognized one of her husband’s earlier campaigns, this one against the Saxons at Mount Badon, depicted upon it. A second scene, one with which she was not familiar, that of a man, his head bowed and his face in shadow, kneeling before an altar in a place she did not recognize. A chalice, silver and plain in design, stood upon the altar; one of the man’s hands reached out towards it and Guinever had the sense of a very great longing within him. That longing made her uneasy and she turned away from the image. The Lady watched her, a peculiar expression upon her face and sadness in her dark eyes, but she said nothing and merely indicated a set of chairs arranged before the fire. The fire itself had been banked for the night but it remained warm and illuminated the room with a very soft light.

Guinever sat and folded her hand upon her lap.

“What has brought you here,” the lady asked. “I can guess. Much of the story is already known, even here. But I would prefer to hear the tale in your own words. Too often we women have been denied the ability to tell our stories ourselves and have been made to sit silently as our truths were bent and twisted through the mouths of a knight, a messenger or a bard.”

Guinever laughed, “They would almost certainly tell a prettier story than the one I have to share. A bard might even succeed in winning sympathy for one such as myself.”

“Perhaps,” the Lady replied. “But ought it to be pretty or ought it to be true ... to your experience of it at the least?”

Guinever smiled. “I was not under the impression that my own experience was of much value, even here, given what I have done and its consequences.”

“But it is,” the Lady replied, “especially here.”

“How so? A queen is almost always more symbol and less person — a barren queen still less of both.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” asked the Lady.

“Perhaps,” said Guinever. “Perhaps not. You and I have not always been friends.”

“No, we have not,” said the Lady sadly, “but we were not always enemies and, perhaps we no longer are.”

“Perhaps,” said Guinever. “It would be nice to have one fewer.”

The Lady laughed at that, the sound warm and melodious. It was as enchanting now as it had been when Guinever first heard it at the age of eight, standing alone in the woods surrounding the lake after she’d slipped away from her morning prayers. She remembered that morning well. She had not been at the convent long, only twenty-one days and twenty nights. Her father had no male heir, and he had known the safety of his land and people depended upon finding a suitable husband for his only daughter. He’d sent her then to the convent to be raised in order that she might become a woman well suited to be a king’s bride.

“You must do well there, my little one,” he had told her as her nurse, a small woman dark of hair and dark of eye, had packed her things. Guinever always listened to her father. He was very busy and often at court and so she spent much of her childhood alone with her nurse and the other young ladies of the Summer Country. When he came to see her, she was determined to look and to appear her best so that he would smile and touch her hair and tell her how very fair she was, “fair as the fay.” Perhaps, too, she thought, if she were good enough, he might stay. But it seem that was not to be the case.

“I will try,” she had answered. “But why must I go?”

“You must do more than try,” he had said, his face more stern than usual, lines of worry etched upon his forehead and his temple. It was a look she recognized, one he’d worn before when he’d send his knights off to fight into one of the king’s wars. “And you must go because I am called to serve the king at Camelot, and you are not yet old enough to come with me there. I will send you to Amesbury to learn and to become a lady able to stand at the side of any king and run his lands and his castle. But you must do well and do me credit, for ours is a fair land, fertile and prosperous. Many lords will want it, so we must find a way to keep it secure. Were you a man I would train you with my knights. I would see to it that you would become the greatest in the land and be a defender to this place. As you are not, we must find another way to defend it and other weapons to use.”

“What are those?” she had asked. At the age of eight, she had thought that she too might learn to shoot a bow and to wield a sword and to ride out on a pretty horse with bells in its harness.

“Beauty,” her father had said. “Courtesy. Charm. There are other means of persuasion than one hundred well-armed knights. Sometimes, especially when the one hundred knights are outnumbered, those other methods are more effective.”

She had not understood him, not then, but she had done as he had asked or she had tried. She had been quiet at the convent and absorbed the lessons she was being taught. They had not always made sense to her. But her father had asked her to do him honor and so she bowed her head and spoke the strange prayers in a language with which she was only becoming familiar and she came and went as told. But, though she tried, she was unused to the high walls and to the tolling of the bells.  
She missed the warmth of the sun, a familiar companion in the times before and present, as she knew on the other side of the high walls. She missed as well the sound of the birds and the feel of the earth beneath her feet. As a child in her father’s castle and with her father sometimes away at the king’s court, her life had not been as carefully structured. She had had her lessons and she had had her duties, but she had been free to explore the castle grounds and, in a time of peace, those grounds had been extensive. By contrast, the convent was a narrow and tight space. The walls were high and kept out much of the sun, and the days were the same and governed by the endless tolling of a bell. She missed the warmth of the sun and the feel of the earth beneath her feet. She missed the sound of the birds and of being able to run wild and free rather than sitting quiet and still.

That morning had been a particularly beautiful day. The sky was a very brilliant blue, more blue than her father’s eyes. Guinever had noticed it as she passed the garden shortly before the morning prayers, and she had decided then that she must escape, if only for the littlest while, and be in the sun and the earth, outside the high walls and away from the sound of the tolling bells.

She had pled a headache after the morning prayers and been sent by one of the nuns with a disapproving frown to rest in her room. Guinever had remained quietly there until the bells rang for the terce prayer. She stayed until the bells stopped and she knew the sisters were praying. Then she slipped quietly from her bed and her room and, moving cat-quiet, slipped from the wing where the novices and students stayed and hurried past the storerooms and the outbuildings to the gate which stood open to admit any visitors to prayer. She waited there until she saw the porter sitting in his neat place with his head bowed, either sleeping or absorbed in prayer himself, and then still moving quickly and quietly slipping through the gate.

She had hurried into the woods and began to walk towards the lake, hoping to catch glimpses of the sun shining upon the water, a fish leaping into the air and the birds at play. But the way was strange to her and it proved longer and darker than she had expected. She heard the sound of birds in the trees and thought she heard the lapping of the lake water, but both remained out of her sight. The path drew close around her and her shoes and the hem of her dress grew damp. Then, strangely and unexpectedly, she saw a flower, white as snow but with a drop of red at its center, almost like a tiny burst of fire. She bent to look at it and considered picking it when she heard a step behind her. She stood, expecting to see one of the sisters. It was a woman, but she was not from the convent. She had emerged as if from the very air. She was small and dark, not unlike Guinever’s nurse, although Guinever saw that this woman was beautiful with lively dark eyes and a face as delicate as the flower Guinever had seen.

She was dressed strangely. She worn a fine gown, as fine as any Guinever herself had worn in her father’s castle and as fine as those hidden away in the clothes press in her father’s chambers, the ones her nurse said that her mother had once worn. But, whereas Guinever’s dresses or her mother’s or those of the other court ladies she had seen once or twice, had been brightly colored and decorated with only a little embroidery, this dress was white, its hem clean and untouched by dirt or damp. It was also very heavily embroidered, so much so that the white, plain to see in some places, was scarce visible in others. The designs were peculiar too. Some were of flowers, their colors brilliant against the white fabric. But others were not any design with which Guinever was familiar but were whorls and strange patterns. The gown itself clung to the lady and was so heavily decorated that it seemed to be less made of fabric and more as if it were drawn upon the lady’s own skin. Had it not been for the long white skirt, Guinever might have thought believed the designs painted upon the lady, much as she had seen them painted upon the tribesmen of the North and in the hills. If the gown the lady wore was unusual, then her face was all the more so. Her skin was darker than Guinever’s and her features were more delicate. She seemed, at first glance to be young, but, as she moved closer and Guinever saw more clearly, she thought that young was not the correct word. No silver might be seen in this woman’s hair and no lines upon her brow or in the corners of her eyes. But those eyes and that face, both beautiful, were strange and knowing in the way that a young woman’s was not.

She seemed unsurprised to see Guinever there.

“I am glad you choose not to pick the flower,” she said. “It was wise not to.”

“I was startled,” Guinever answered.

“Were you, Guinever, daughter of Leodegrance?” the woman asked. “I am sorry, but I was anxious. I have been expecting you.”

“Me?” Guinever replied. “Why?”

The woman smiled and said, “Fair as a fay woman.”

“What?”

“Fair as a fay woman, they said you were,” said the lady, “and so you are, strange though it is to hear.”

“How is it strange?” she asked.

“For you are not one of the Fay and I am,” said the woman, “and you are different to me. Different in looks, different in belief and different in kind. You were to be raise raised to be very different to us in that strange building with its high walls and its days regulated by the tolling of a bell.”

Guinever stood mesmerized by her.

“What is it they teach you there? From what did you decide to escape this morning?”

“How do you ... how did you know?”

“They’d not allow you here, certainly not on your own. This is a perilous place visited by perilous people.”

“You aren’t perilous,” Guinever said.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t believe you are.”

“But I am,” the lady replied, “and so too are you or you will be. But, come, why did you decide to come to this place where you would not be allowed?”

“I wanted to see the sun,” Guinever said, “and the water and hear the birds. You cannot only see hints of them from the convent, and I grew weary of the tall, stone walls and the bells.”

“And the bells. The tolling of the bells,” the lady answered. “Come with me, then. Let us go and see the sun on the water and look for the birds or a fish.”

She extended her hand to Guinever. Guinever took it and the two walked slowly together down the winding path until they arrived at a lake, shining like a jewel in the sunlight. There they sat together upon a rock in the warm sun. Guinever watched as fish leapt from the water and caught sight of several tall white birds with delicate necks and equally delicate legs but with lethal beaks able to spear a fish from the water.

“Do you like this place?” the lady asked.

“Yes,” Guinever said. “It is very beautiful and peaceful.”

“Yes,” the lady answered. “I find it beautiful and peaceful too.”

“What is at the other side of the lake?”

“At the other side of the lake?” the lady repeated. “What is at the other side of the lake. A place also beautiful and peaceful but one many find perilous. My home is at the other side of the lake.”

“What is it like?”

“My home?” the lady said as if she will considering her answer. “It is very like to your convent in some ways, a mirror image some might say. But it is an older mirror, the kind that has grown clouded and sometimes more difficult to determine what is revealed within it.”

“I don’t understand,” Guinever replied.

“Perhaps not yet,” the lady replied. “I think you will not always be a stranger to my home and may be able to gauge the truth of that answer at some point in your life.”

Guinevere was unsure what to think of this response but she was afraid to ask the lady to speak more plainly so she remained silent and still and looked out upon the water.. She was unsure how long they sat. They said little. The lady sang quietly, old nursery tunes Guinever had learned from her nurse, and, before the sun had reached and then passed the center of the sky, she extended her hand back to Guinever and said that it was time to return. Guinever did not want to go but she also did not want to be caught or lost by the lake, so she took the woman’s hand and walked beside her. They did not seem to retrace their steps but went another and faster way. Before Guinever realized, they were at the edge of the woods with the convent before and the bells, beginning to ring.

“Hurry,” the lady said. “Be back before the bells stop and none will know.”

“But,” Guinever said.

“No buts,” the lady said. “Hurry.”

Hurry Guinever did, moving quickly through the open space between woods and wall and past the porter’s gate. She slipped in through the kitchen and hurried through the storerooms and down the hall to where her room was located. She had only returned and settled upon her bed when the door opened to admit Sister Martha. The sister looked around the room and then at Guinever. She said, “I was called to see how you were.”

“Better, I think,” said Guinever.

“Well, if you’re better, then you may come with me,” the sister said, disapproval clear in her voice. “The bells have only just run for Terce.”

“Are you certain?” Guinever asked for she found that very strong.

“Quite,” Sister Martha replied. “Now come.”

Guinever stood and smoothed the rough fabric of her dress. She followed the sister out of the chamber and into the corridor. “Sister,” she asked.

“Yes,” the sister replied.

“Are we permitted to go down to the lake?”

“No,” Sister Martha replied, her voice a little sharper. “We are not. Why would you ask?”

“I had heard it was very pretty.”

“It is very dangerous,” Sister Martha answered. “There are strange creatures to be found there, ones of which I may not speak, but they have been known to steal children away. Sometimes they bring them back. Sometimes they do not. If they do, the child returns sometimes after few hours or other times after a few days with no memory of time passing at all.

Guinever shook her head, returning her thoughts to a different room in the same convent at a much later date, and saw the Lady watching her.

The Layd smiled and said, “It would be nice to have one fewer enemy, and we have more in common than you believe. If you have been derided as a faithless queen, I have been mocked as a scheming witch, more like to use stealth and deception to achieve my ends. But I think there is more to us than this, do you not?”

“I no longer know,” Guinever replied.

“Then,” the Lady said, standing and pouring a wine into a goblet, the warmth of it and the scent of the spices carrying through the air, “tell the tale and we shall decide.” She poured a second goblet for herself and returned to her seat. “What is it that brought you here?”

“Mordred,” Guinever said. “Who else?” Even within the warmth of the Lady’s chambers, she shivered thinking of her husband’s son. Dark of hair and fair of face was Mordred or he would have been had his eyes been a little kinder and his mouth less thin and cruel. She shuddered as she remembered his voice, low and silken, whispering in her ear. He had come to her bower, not long after her husband had taken ship across the narrow sea in pursuit of Lancelot, once his dearest friend but also her lover.

“Come to my bed, my lady,” Mordred had murmured, his hand trailing across her shoulder, his breath soft against her cheek. “Come and I’ll make you my queen.”

She’d shaken her head. “I am married to another,” she had replied. “As well you know, given that he is your own father.”

“But what would that matter to you, lady?” he had countered, cruel laughter in his voice. “It isn’t as if you honored your vows to my father. And this — it would keep you safe and secure. High upon your throne and away from the common people.”

Guinever had made no reply. She had remained still and seated in the window seat, her head turned and looking out upon the grounds of her home in the Summer Country.

“After all, the common people love me,” he had said, “and they honor you no longer, so angry are they with you for scorning my father.”

“And you think they would honor you for consorting with one such as me?”

“Well, they might appreciate me taking care of my late father’s widow, whenever she becomes one,” he’d replied, “and doing what I must to ensure that she remains an honorable woman.”

She had heard the satisfaction in his soft voice, the hint of relish as he lingered over the last words, but she had still refused to answer him, though her hands had tightened slightly upon her skirts and her nails had dug a little into her thigh.

Slight as the movements were, Mordred had noticed. But he had only laughed as he leaned closer still, his hands resting upon the arms of her chair. “What would it matter to you?” he’d whispered. “You’ve sullied yourself once already. They say I am very like to my father anyway. My mother says that I am in all the different ways. Perhaps I might also remind you a little of Lancelot too, at least in the dark of night and beneath the bedcovers. He was kin to my mother too, after all. You needn’t even open your eyes, and I well know that we all pretend.”

She had wanted to slap him but hadn’t dared.

“No kind words for me, sweet lady?” he’d asked when she had yet to speak, his tone mocking. “No tender words of encouragement? I’ll give you a day to consider and will come to you before sundown on the morrow. I hope, for your sake, you have a fairer answer. I take what I want and what I am due, even if it is an aged, barren queen.”

Guinever had taken a careful breath then and met his eyes. In them she saw a familiar hunger, a craving for power and for its trappings and symbols, one of which she knew to be she herself. She leaned towards him and noticed his eyes widen and darken and his breath become more rapid and uneven. “I think only of the inconsistency,” she said, “and the challenge it poses to your rule to take a disgraced queen.”

”If I can control you,” he said, “where my father couldn’t, what would be the disgrace there? I would have you, my lady, willing or no.”

Smiling cruelly, he had bowed, the easy grace of it a foil to the insolent mockery in his smile, and had left her. For long minutes after, she had remained seated and waited until her breathing slowed and her heart had stopped racing. She waited longer still until her thoughts moved less quickly and until she could turn each one over in her mind, able to see them individually and to evaluate them. Then and only then had she risen and had begun to consider her situation. Moving slowly and deliberately around her chamber, she had placed each possibility before her and weighed them carefully. She was able to accept Mordred — to do as he demanded and to wed him, regardless of whether Arthur lived or died. If he prevailed, then she had bought herself a little time, but for what? To live, but to live caged and bound and subject to the whims of a cruel man? If Mordred did not prevail, then she might simply declare that he had forced her. After all, was that not what this was? Was any acceptance she gave free of coercion if it was based not upon her own inclination but upon the probability of force? And was that not force, if the threat was implicit and as real as the steel at Mordred’s side and in the coolness of his smile? She had understood the threat, the possibility of force, the danger that lay inherent in men such as Mordred, in more men than Mordred if she were honest. Had she not known them before? And did she not remember her nurse’s soft laugh as she’d pointed at the knights of Camelot riding by with their powerful steeds and their bright colors?

“Knights,” she had said and pointed, “in the service of the king and the service of what’s right.”

“That may be, little one,” her nurse had said — her nurse had been small and dark of hair and of eye — “for you, for you are of a house whose alliance the King seeks, and you are fair, fair as a fay woman, you shall be. But, for those whose fortunes are less than your own and whose houses accepted neither the Pendragon nor his son but followed old Gorlaes, those knights will appear less pretty than they do to do for all their colors and their ribbons and the bells upon their horses’ gear.

“Why would someone not support the king?”

“‘Tis a thing to do with a woman,” her nurse said, “and one fair as you, fair as the Fay. Her beauty drove the King’s father mad and he would take her as his own, though she had been given to another, and so he did. Her husband died as a result and the King was born after, too soon for some to believe him to be truly the king’s. Some have not forgotten and have not accepted the King as a result.”

“Oh,” Guinever had said as if she understood, but, in truth, she had been young and had not.

Several years later, seeing the another detachment of knights wearing the colors of Camelot and bearing the sign of the Pendragon, she had understood a little better. The knights were, it happened, there to escort her and her retinue to Camelot to marry the king born as a result of that marriage. Then she had asked her nurse, though the woman had, in truth, not served as her nurse in many years, a different question.

“Who did the King’s mother want?” Guinever Had asked. “The King or her husband? You did not tell me this.”

“I do not know. Most of the stories say she wanted the King,” the nurse had replied. “But that is an easier ending for the stories to have for the tale ended with her married to the king.”

“I see,” Guinever had said.

“I think a better question might have been what she wanted.”

“No one would ask that,” Guinever had said. “No one asks what a woman who is being bartered as a queen wants.”

“Perhaps, if no one will ask,” her nurse had said, “she ought, at the least, to ask herself.”

“If no one will ask,” Guinever had said, “why would she dare? It would only break her heart when it is denied to her.”

“It is an opportunity you have, my lady,” her nurse had said, “for you are fair, fair as the fay, and the king wishes to wed you. In such a place, you might make your own world, high and safe from harm.”

“But what if it does not matter how high and safe from harm I am if I cannot choose my own fate? What does it matter if my husband is the greatest king in the land and wise and fair if he is not who I have chosen nor I who he desires? What does it then become but another cage, albeit a large and beautiful one?”

“A princess seldom chooses to whom she is to be wed,” the nurse had replied. “You have a better fate than most for you will be safe and honored, and the King is said to be a fair and kind man. He wishes to wed you for you are fair and he will love you for the same reason; he will not be able to help himself.”

“The king wishes to wed me because my father must be remain an ally and because I will bring him a hundred knights and a table round at which to sit them,” Guinever had countered. “That I am fair, well, that is fortunate, perhaps, but that is hardly the purpose, not compared to one hundred knights. Besides, he’s not met me so he does not know that I am fair.”

“All say you are fair, fair as fay-woman,” the nurse had said, her voice reminding Guinever of days long passed, when she was a child and her nurse told her she was as fair as the fay and might have any happiness she wanted. The memory cut, sharp as any of the King’s men’s swords.

“That is always said of the ladies in every tale, that they are fair, fair as one of the fay. It does not mean that it is true or even that it matters.”

The nurse had smiled then, and she had turned to face Guinever. Speaking quietly, so quietly that none but Guinever might hear, she hadsaid, “Then you must learn how to make it matter. Beauty, such as yours is rare, and it is as fine a weapon as any knife. The old queen failed to understand this, and so she became a victim of her beauty rather than the one to wield it. Learn to wield it.”

Guinever had wanted to ask her to explain, but at that time the knights had arrived and at their head, the favored of the king, the finest knight in the kingdom, a serious man, dark of eye and with a kind face. His name, he had said, was Lancelot. He had bowed deeply, and then had extended his hand to take hers. He had smiled gently and said that he was a knight in the king’s service and sent to be her protector and champion.

“So I am now and so I shall always be, my lady,” he had told her, his hand in hers. 

A hand lightly touched Guinever’s and then squeezed it. Then a different voice, that voice of the Lady of the Lake, now Abbess in this place, spoke, “My lady, I believe you are becoming lost in thought and in the past tonight.”

“So I am,” Guinever had replied.

“As am I,” the Lady replied. “Since we both are, perhaps it is a sign that we ought to retire for the night? Rest and we can speak more of our past in the morning, examine our present and consider our futures. I will summon Nimuë to take you to your room.” She rang the bell and the same novice returned. She carried a candle in her hand, but this one was contained by a costly glass shell, a creation more like to be seen in Camelot than here.

“A gift,” the Lady said, “from your husband to me when I came here. Let it and Nimuë light your path. We will speak more in the morning.”

Guinever stood as the girl approached and said, even as the girl dropped an awkward curtsy before her. “I am no queen, but am merely a woman in need of shelter.”

“Your grace,” the girl said.

“I am no queen,” she repeated.

“I think,” the Lady said quietly, “there we are all queens and yet not here tonight, save perhaps this lady.” She indicated a statue of the virgin. “But she too was not born a queen and, in other circumstances, might have been considered a witch.”

“Four queens and none at all,” Guinever said and smiled. “Shall we go then, Nimuë?”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl answered. “I will show you the place where you may rest.”

They left the chambers given to the abbess and then walked past those reserved for honored and noble guests before arriving at the rooms given to the sisters. The girl pulled a key from her robe and carefully unlocked a door. It opened into a small chamber, smaller than the one Guinever had occupied when she had studied here but as neat. She noted the narrow bed, the Prie-Dieu where she might pray and a chair, wooden and seemingly hard, located near a window.

“It looks out upon the garden, my lady,” the girl said. “There is already water here for you if you would like to wash, and I will bring some clothes and other things for you.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“I should tell you that the rooms are not a punishment but rather ...”

“Safety,” Guinever said. “None would necessarily think to find me in one of these.”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl said.

“And if I am to stay here for any length, I had best stay on the same terms as the other sisters.”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl answered, “I think that too.”

“Wise,” Guinever commented, “and a good test of my sincerity.”

“I did not mean,” said the girl.

“I know.”

The girl made no reply.

“Was the garden view your idea? Or was it the only room available?”

“It was my idea, my lady,” the girl whispered. “I thought you would appreciate it.”

“I do,” she said, and the girl stepped out, closing the door behind her.

Guinever sat upon the bed, noticing its firmness, and wondered if she should kneel at the Prie-Dieu. In some places, in certain company, they believed that she should. They felt she should kneel and beg forgiveness for her sins. From whom, exactly? From Arthur? He already knew and had known everything there was to say and had either forgiven her or not before she might have thought to ask. She wondered what they might say to one another now, with him having left in pursuit of Lancelot, and with her own decision to seek sanctuary. Very little, she supposed. Whatever there was to say, they had already said it many times before, though, more often than not, without words.

She remembered one day, perhaps a season before Mordred had revealed her relationship with Lancelot to the court. She had sat in the garden, having dismissed her ladies and waiting for Lancelot to attend her. Nothing of note, at least of note as the scandal mongers of the court would define it, would have happened there that day. Lancelot would have read to her or perhaps they might have sung together. More likely, they would have simply walked among the flowers and the artfully-scupted topiary and talked. He would not have embraced her or even kissed her hand, save in greeting and in farewell. But they would have been alone, and she would have been able to speak freely with the one person in the realm who understood her and whose careful, quiet mind was a mirror to her own.

As she’d sat and waited, she had heard a footfall. Because she knew Lancelot’s footfall intimately, she had known it was not his. She also knew this footfall as intimately and had known to whom it belonged.

“My lord,” she had said.

“My lady,” he said and took her hand. “Forgive me, I had to send Lance away to address a quarrel among the men. Lot’s sons are far more steady than their father ever was, but they are testy and often provoke as much unease and peace.”

“And he’s likely to resolve it?”

“He’s capable of persuading Gawain to hunt while the weapons master succeeds in wearing the temper from the others. It gave me time to speak with the men with neither Lance nor Gawain nor the other Orkney sons present.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t have him put them through their paces.”

“It was not,” Arthur had said, “the day for that. Truth be told, it was as good for Lance to go as for Gawain. They both needed to be away.”

“What caused the quarrel?’ Guinever had asked, but she began to think that she might know.

Arthur had smiled and said, “Truly. Nothing at all. Petty jealously. The sort of thing that happens among men who are too often around one another when there are too few tourneys and battles to settle that competitive itch. That’s all.”

He had said it so easily that she might have believed him if she had not known him as well as she did. She had looked up and had met his eyes. His face had been easy, relaxed and serene but his eyes had been far too knowing and far too sad.

“Your grace,” she had begun, not entirely sure how she intended to complete her thought.

“I know it has not been easy for you, Guinever,” he had said. “Our marriage was, in truth, a political one before it was any other, but I have grown to love and to respect you, my queen.”

“And I you,” she had said, and it was true. She had loved and respected him, and she had known that she always would, but theirs was not a love that burned or that brought her to her knees. He had respected her and she him, but he had not been the mirror image of herself and he was not the one who she knew so intimately or the one with whom she knew herself better than she ever had. But he had known this, and she had been able to see it settling in his eyes and in the not-quite fullness of his smile.

“I shall have to find some use for the men,” he had said. “An expedition or a quest of some kind. They become restless and uneasy, particularly Mordred. It would be good to find a challenge for his many talents.”

He had taken her hand and had held it tightly, and Guinever had known that it was no idle comment.

“They would enjoy a quest,” she had said.

“Indeed,” he had replied. “I believe they would.”

Lancelot had not come to her that day nor the next nor for many afterwards. They both had known that he would come to her eventually, and so he had done, not late at not, nor early in the morning, but in the middle of the day. It had been a hot day in the high summer at Camelot, and she had dismissed her ladies to rest somewhere in the cooler confines of the castle. She herself had sought refuge in long-forgotten unused chambers of the castle, rooms that had been Arthur’s when he was a babe and that, once, been readied for a child she had conceived and had not been able to bring to term living. She had not been certain what had brought her there, a need to be certain she was alone, a sense of curiosity about what might have been had she been able to bear an heir and supplant Mordred from his position of watching and waiting and planning. They were not, she thought, mutually exclusive. These were thoughts best to entertain alone.

A harp had sat in one corner of the room. She had requested it for the child, thinking she might play upon it to calm a restless babe. There had been no babe to calm, but the harp had never been returned. She’d not wanted to see or to play it again, and so it remained here, in a wing of the palace seldom used before and not used since. She walked over to it and touched the strings likely, plucking one note and then another. The sounds were random and dissonant.

“I wondered if you might have come here,” his voice was familiar, as it had been, always had been, even when she had heard it for the first time.

“I hadn’t before,” she replied.

“It seemed natural,” he said, “to wonder what might have been, how things might have turned out differently.”

“There still would be challenges,” she replied. “But an heir, could I have given him one, would have prevented Mordred from attain the standing he has.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” Lancelot had answered. “He’s a clever man and pursues his thoughts and plans on several different paths at once. He might have enjoyed befriending and then betraying a brother. He relishes his plots, even when they do not end in the way he hoped. He finds amusement in them.”

“No doubt,” she had answered. “Does Arthur see it?”

“Of course,” Lancelot had said. “But Arthur ... “

“Had his own guilt,” she had replied. “What do we do, you and I?”

“I am your champion,” he had said, “and I must make the proper choices to best defend you. I think you are wise enough to understand what that means, what it involves.”

“Yes,” she had said. “But can we ... in truth?”

“We must,” he had said, “for your sake, for Arthur’s.”

They had succeeded, at least for a time, but it had become too much and Guinever too alone and Lancelot himself hovering at the edge of madness. She had thought to send him away, had intended to send him away, the last time she saw him and they were caught. She had not been able to send him away. He had not been able to leave, not even when the realm depended upon it. He had always returned to her, even when it may prove to have cost him his life and Arthur his kingdom. Lancelot had always returned, and so now she was here in the convent. Lancelot was across the sea with Arthur in pursuit, and Mordred preparing to battle Arthur, should he survive, knowing the fight against Lancelot would weaken him further still. All this, because she was not able to stay away.

No, that was not entirely true. It was true, but not the full truth.

All this, she thought, because she had not been able to love her husband as she should. She had loved him, but had loved another differently, in the way she needed to love and be loved.

She shook her head.

That too was not entirely true. It was not the full truth.

All this, she thought, because a father might buy security for his land by selling his daughter, one hundred knights and a peculiar table to a king and a king might hope to secure his realm by accepting a hundred knights and a queen. What would have happened if she’d been allowed to choose? She considered this, turned the thought in her head, and then dismissed it as useless. Few choices were permitted to a woman, even one born as well and fortunate as she.

It was interesting, Guinever thought, to consider herself fortunate, but, in truth, she was. She had been certain of food and safety, of education and of a certain degree of power in her world. She had been loved, even by the man she had married and by another, so like to herself he seemed almost a part of her. She had loved, and they had been the two most shining men of her world. She was lucky, it seemed. Perhaps too much so.

She smiled, considering that, and, as she smiled, she heard a knock at the door. The novice stood before her, bearing a set of robes similar to her own and a thin shift. The shift was made of very fine material but seemed to be made for someone rather shorter than Guinever. The girl — Nimuë, was it? — also carried two heavy woolen blankets. They too were made of wool and woven very finely.

“It does little good to place me here and then give me such fine furnishings,” Guinever observed.

“We tend sheep,” the girl replied, “and spin and weave and we sell our wares at market. These are of our making and no finer than that used by any other woman in our community.”

“It is, indeed, fine work,” Guinever said, “and I apologize.”

The girl appeared not to know how to respond and simply bobbed another awkward curtsy and left.

Guinever stood and carefully disrobed, noting the places in which the brambles and thorns from the rough ride through the countryside might be seen upon her skin. She noticed too the places where her feet had been worn and were blistered and reddened when she could no longer ride but had had to dismount and lead her horse through. She’d been fortunate to remember the way. She folded her clothes and set them atop the press and then walked to the plain stand upon which the earthenware pitcher and basin stood along with a cloth of a rougher weave than the fine blankets and finer shift. She poured the water carefully into the basin and dipped the cloth into it. Slowly she began to wash, not well, this was no substitute for a true bath, but it would do to clean the grime of the journey from her and the water was cool but not too cold and pleasant. She finished washing and drew the slip over her head, spread the blankets upon the bed and slipped in. She thought she would find sleep elusive but she fell into it far more quickly than she would have imagined.

As she slept, she dreamed. Her dreams were myriad and peopled by those she’d loved, those she’d hated and others she’d feared. Her husband moved through them. Tender as he had been when they had first met and she had been so very young and unsure. Kind as he had remained and sad as he had grown, understanding that she had grown to love him in time, but never the way a husband might have wished. Her lover appeared as well. Sometimes he rode with her husband. Sometime he rode alone. Other times she saw him jousting, laughing as he pulled his helmet from his head, inevitably with Gawain scowling to the side. Still another time, she saw him or someone so very like him, with dark hair and fine hands, kneeling before an alter, hands outreaches in desire and in supplication towards a shining figure standing before the alter, something golden and brilliant in its hands. Finally, she saw him clearly as he had been when she had first seen him in the morning of a spring day, trees in bloom. She remembered it well, white blossoms falling from the trees to the ground and caught upon the harness and in his own dark hair. She saw her father too, distant, but not unkind, and her mother, a brief and blurred vision. She saw her enemies as well. Her husband’s sisters, one fair and the other dark, both deadly. She saw Arthur, again, on his horse, followed by his men traveling down a long road towards something she was not able to see. Over and above it all, she heard the sound of waves and of sails and of men working the oars of a ship out upon the sea. Someone — Lancelot, Arthur or another of the men, she did not know — seemed to be calling her, their voice clear and fair and ringing like a bell.

It was a bell, she thought. The bell at the convent was tolling for the early morning prayers. Guinever stood and splashed her face with water, and then she plaited her hair and put on her robe. She attended prayers. She spoke the words correctly. She knelt when she should and rose when she should. Afterwards, she left the chapel but, rather than returning to her room, she went to the garden and sat upon the same bench. In the light, its state was far more visible. Beautiful it was but it had faded. Much of that she supposed had to do with the lateness of the season and the natural process of decay in which blooms had faded and the rose bushes themselves had begun to retreat in preparation for a winter not long away.

She had not been there long before she heard the step of the Lady approaching her.

“The garden is preparing for sleep,” the Lady said. “Much as I think we might be ourselves. Though I believe your husband shall prevail, I fear that this moment marks a change for all of us, for good or for ill, and the ending of an era. This time is soon to recede.”

“Into song and memory,” Guinever replied. “Where all things go.”

“All things go,” the Lady replied. “How do you suppose we will be remembered in story and song?”

“As the foolish queen whose actions caused the fall of a kingdom?” Guinever replied.

“As the witch who hurt it more than she helped it,” the Lady countered, smiling slightly. “And neither of those tales is true or even close to the truth.”

“There may be a certain seed of it in both,” Guinever said.

“Perhaps,” the Lady answered. “I had dreams last night. Dreams of times long past. Dreams of mistakes I’d made, choices made and paths not taken. Over and above it all, I heard the sound of the sea.”

“Arthur is at sea,” Guinever said, thinking of her own dream.

“So he is or so he was or so he will be soon,” the Lady replied.

“And Mordred,” Guinever said. “Mordred.”

“Yes,” said the Lady. “Mordred. Shall you tell me your tale? Before the bards take it from us?”

“What purpose would it serve?” Guinever replied. “If the bards intend to take it?”

“To have given it and yourself voice,” the Lady answered, “if only for a fleeting time. Did you love your husband?”

“Aye,” said Guinever, “I did.”

“And Lancelot?”

“I loved him too,” Guinever said. “I loved two men and two men only.”

“And both were the most shining men of this time.”

“Yes,” Guinever said, “but I loved them at the same time and I loved them not the same. Had I loved both the same, then perhaps I might have chosen more wisely.”

“Wisdom is sometimes challenging when the heart is involved,” the Lady answered. “How did you love them?”

“I resented Arthur at first,” Guinever said. “I’d no wish to be married, but my father had no heir to secure his kingdom through deed of arms, and so he armed me for battle a different way. He sent me here to learn to be a proper lady and then brought me home, had me dressed in my mother’s gowns and encouraged bards to tell stories of my beauty. Fair as one of the fay, they were to say.”

“You are,” the Lady said.

“Fortunately for my father and my land, I was,” Guinever replied. “Though the enticements of the Summer Country were greater than those any woman might offer. Fertile land. A lord with a hundred knights to offer to his own liege. Skilled craftsman able to make any object one desires, even a table round.”

The Lady inclined her head. “And so you married. Arthur was as taken by tales of your beauty as by the number of knights your father might supply.”

“He may have been,” said Guinever. “But I am certain he would have found not expedient to marry a beauty who lacked land or knights.”

“True,” the Lady said.

“It was a good marriage offer,” Guinever said. “I knew that. We all knew that. We also knew that I needed to marry to secure the position of the Summer Country in the only way open to a King who had only a female heir, and so for me, for one hundred knights and a round table, the Summer Country became the valued ally of the king and our security and prosperity was ensured while he reigned.”

“You did as well as your father might have hoped,” the Lady answered.

“I did,” Guinever said, “and I hated it. I resented my father and I resented Arthur, not because the offer was not a kind one and not because the king was himself unkind, but because I had little choice in it. A place might be the most desirable in the world, a wine the finest, food the most delicious, a gown more fine than any other, but none of these will bring contentment if one was forced to devour them rather than being allowed to choose.”

“I see,” said the Lady, “and I understand.”

“It was a good place and a good marriage to a kind man,” Guinever continued, “but it was not mine to choose. Only later did I learn to appreciate Arthur and, even then, though I appreciated him and to love him, I never came to love him as a wife ought to love her husband. I loved him, but as a subject loves her king.”

“But you loved Lancelot?”

“I did,” Guinever said. “He was brightness in my darker days, water when I was thirsty and food when I had been starving. He understood me. He saw me as a woman and not merely the bejeweled trinket standing next to the king. He understood what I felt and how I thought, and he sought my happiness. I felt safe, and I felt known.”

“That would be difficult not to love,” the Lady said.

“It was impossible,” Guinever said. “It was foolish. It was selfish. It endangered my life, my husband, my own country, but it was impossible not to love and impossible not to act upon it.”

“And so Mordred noticed,” the Lady said. “He was ever greedy, always sought to collect the beauty in the world. He almost certainly wanted to possess yours. You are fair, but that fairness belonged to the man he hated and resented more than any other.”

“Arthur or Lancelot,” asked Guinever.

“True enough,” the Lady said. “He hated Arthur only a little more because he was the father Mordred could not have and the husband to the wife Mordred wanted. He hated Lancelot because ... well, because you choose Lancelot.”

“True,” Guinever said. “He had long suspect that I was not faithful to the King and he had been certain that Lancelot was my partner in this offense. He made, as it were, any number of hints regarding it throughout the years, though, in truth, each hint seemed to contain a thinly-veiled suggestion that my faithlessness might be concealed if I would but only replace Lancelot in my bed with Mordred himself. I ignored it.”

“Of course,” the Lady replied. “To acknowledge it would bring the possibility that someone had noticed and might be able to prove the truth of his allegation.”

“Yes,” Guinever replied. “I ignored his insinuations and I even understood that Mordred continued to wait and to watch. I had set aside Lancelot, but, one day, we were not able to stay away, and Mordred discovered this.”

“With intelligence from a chambermaid he’d seduced to his own purpose,” the Lady said. “One who resembled you if the tales are true.”

“If you know that, then ...” Guinever began.

But the Lady interrupted, “It is as I have said. I would have the tale in your own words, not those of any man who seeks to bandy it about through every town.”

Guinever sighed and then she continued her tale, “Having secured his proof, Mordred revealed my betrayal to the king and forced Arthur’s hand — spare me and reveal the justice of Camelot to be false, deployed against only those who displeased the king, or remain true to his ideals and condemn a queen he pitied.” Guinever paused and then continued, “Arthur is consistent. Mordred must have understood that.”

“Perhaps,” the Lady said, “sometimes we project our own failings upon others. But he seemed to have planned for either eventuality.”

“Indeed,” Guinever replied. “He had also apprised Lancelot of the time and the place of my execution and the number of men who were to be placed there as guards. Lancelot guessed the outcome of this plan, that Mordred intended no kindness to him or to me, but rather would use any rescue as a pretext to act again against the king. But he would not leave me to die and chose to rescue me and set into motion the chain of events that led me here, to you.”

“Lancelot rescued you,” the Lady said, “and returned you to the Summer Country. before fleeing. Arthur chose not to act against you but, now, in his time of need, may not be able to count upon his closest friend and ally.”

“And the one who most clearly undermined his rule,” Guinever answered, “besides, of course, me. We both most clearly unmanned him when neither of us wished to see him injured or opposed. We set this in motion, and I do not know what will happen.”

“Neither do I,” the Lady answered, “not for all my dreams of Arthur or the sound of the sea. What is it that you wish for yourself, Guinever?”

“Not to be in this position,” she replied.

“That is not an possibility,” the Lady said, “and you are wise enough to know it. Given your position, what is it that you would choose to do? If Arthur prevails, you may well return to the Summer Country. You may even return to the role of wife. If Mordred prevails, you cannot without him pursuing you. You might seek him out; he would take you as his wife, for a time at least.”

“To avoid both was the reason I came here,” Guinever said. “I would do Arthur little service as a wife. It was not a role I filled as well as I ought, neither being able to offer him the love he expected or the child he required. It was not a role I wanted but one placed upon me in my youth, the requirement of beauty and birth. But I do not want the role of wife to Mordred, even if he should prevail. He is cruel and unkind, and he might desire me but he does not desire my happiness. That is also not a role I wanted but one Mordred would confine me in. I would like to be able to chose my own.”

“Will you return if you may?”

“No,” Guinever replied. “I would stay here where I might carve out a role for myself, on my own, where it matters little that I had once been a lady or as fair as the fay.”

“What would do you here?”

“I might teach the novices to read. I might embroider. I know how to run an estate. I know how to see butter churned, cheese made, and wine fermented. I know how to raise cattle, barter at the market and keep accounts.”

The Lady smiled, “And so you do, and I would have a place for someone with your talents. It is a place of considerable responsibility, though less than what was given to a queen. It might also offer you the opportunity to carve out a place on your own and for your own.”

“What is that?”

“As a stewardess of sorts, and then, when the time comes, as my successor if you were to wish it,” the Lady replied.

“You seem in fine health,” Guinever said.

“Indeed, I am,” the Lady said, “but I wonder ... it is in my heart that I may yet need to return to the lake and journey to the other side which was once my home. It has grown removed from the world in recent years, so removed that I wonder it is remains part of this world as we know it now. Is that an option acceptable to you? I know not when that might come.”

“Yes,” said Guinever, “it would be.”

The Lady smiled and so did Guinever. They sat quietly there, sometimes speaking and sometimes not as the time passed between the early and mid-morning prayers, unaware, despite their wisdom, despite the Lady’s foresight, that a messenger, come from a great battle, had begun to journey towards them, bearing news of the fall of a king.


End file.
